PLPs to Know Students Well: Introducing the Personal Learning Plan Toolkit

  Introducing our updated PLP Toolkit Knowing each student well is essential to a year of flourishing for students and educators. It’s a prerequisite to ensuring equitable access to belonging and wellbeing, a culturally-responsive learning environment, and deep learning. And it enriches the relationships so central to a thriving school. Personal learning plans (PLPs) can …

Using Seesaw with Google Classroom for PLPs

How can educators manage PLPs in remote learning? What goes into a Learning Management System? And what does it look like to effectively tie the two together in a smooth workflow? Seesaw + Google Classroom is one increasingly popular combination. SeeSaw is in heavy rotation as a platform for Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) and portfolios. …

Looking at PLPs

Connecting deeply with students matters. Research tell us this. So does teacher experience. Educators spend a lot of time learning about student interests, their families and cultures, their identities and dreams. This is important work, and is often based on what they show us, or tell us. But what if students are in the drivers …

Ch 7: PLPs & Proficiency-Based Assessment

What do PLPs and proficiency-based assessment have in common? They both emphasize what students CAN do. They’re not about ranking, sorting, and labeling. They’re about growth, progress, and opportunity for all. First, some definitions: According to the Vermont Agency of Education: The focus of proficiency-based learning is on students’ demonstration of desired learning outcomes. Students …

Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs)

Knowing each student well is essential to a year of flourishing for students and educators. It’s a prerequisite to ensuring equitable access to belonging and wellbeing, a culturally-responsive learning environment, and deep learning. And it enriches the relationships so central to thriving among youth and adults alike. Personal learning plans (PLPs) can drive a rich …

Chapter 7: PLPs and Proficiency-Based Assessment

Foundations & Connections What is Proficiency-Based Learning? Vermont Agency of Education A New Era for Educational Assessment, David T. Conley, Jobs for the Future, 2014 How Selective Colleges and Universities Evaluate Proficiency-Based High School Transcripts: Insights for Students and Schools, Erika Blauth and Sarah Hadjian, New England Board of Higher Education, 2016 What is the …

Chapter 8: PLPs, Goal-Setting, and Student-Led Conferences

Examples & Tools Student-Led Conferences and Engagement in PLPs, Audrey Homan, Tarrant Institute, 2016 The Rise of the Project-Based PLP, Life LeGeros, Tarrant Institute, 2018 What Makes for Good Goal-Setting in a PLP? Life LeGeros, Tarrant Institute, 2015 Growth and Reflection, PLP Pathways One-Year Plan for PLPs and SLCs, Swift House, Williston Central School One-Year …

Chapter 4: Launching PLPs with the Learner Profile

Foundations & Connections Learner Profiles, The Institute for Personalized Learning Vermont Personalized Learning Plan: Conceptual Framework Narrative for Students, Vermont Agency of Education Examples & Tools Identity Project: Who am I now? Lindsey Halman, Essex Middle School Personal Learning Plan Community Page, Team Summit, Montpelier Main Street Middle School, Vermont How Can Students Teach Educators …

Increasing student engagement in PLPs at Williston Central

It’s about providing choice in reflection tools Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) across the state have taken many different forms and serve a few different purposes. One common thread among educators is a wondering of how to increase student engagement in the PLP process. How to make it more meaningful and relevant. Michael Willis, Jared Bailey, …

(Re) Designing PLPs with students

What Vermont students really think about personal learning plans Put 47 middle-level students together, challenge them to think differently about ways to create effective, relevant and meaningful Personalized Learning Plans, and watch the magic happen. This past summer, we did exactly that.

How Vermont middle grades educators are powering up PLPs this summer

Why the 2016 Middle Grades Institute may be the most important one yet New podcast ep: We visit with educators at last summer’s Middle Grades Institute to look at how this unique professional development opportunity is helping Vermont’s middle grades educators deal with the challenges posed by legislative Act 77, the Flexible Pathways Initiative. Also, …

Google Tools for personal learning plans (PLPs)

A teacher-authored case study Today we hear from a grade 5-6 team venturing into the world of personal learning plans (PLPs) using Google Tools. Jared Bailey, math teacher, and Joy Peterson, English Language Arts teacher, provide concrete details on how they rolled out PLPs this year, including links to such resources as graphic organizers that they used for …

Student-led conferences and engagement in PLPs

A middle school case study Katie Bryant, an English teacher at Lamoille Union Middle School, presents the results of her semester-long action research project examining the relationship between student-led conferences and engagement in PLPs, or personal learning plans. Here’s what she and her team discovered. Transcript appears below. Hi! I’m Katie Bryant. I teach at …

PLPs and literacy

Incorporating student choice into reading This screencast, from Crossett Brook Middle School, in Waterbury, Vermont, describes an action research project based on the premise that students would benefit if day-to-day classroom instruction reflected the choice and self-direction at the heart of Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs). In addition to the positive response of students, one of the …

Equity toolkit

The moral imperative behind our work at TIIE has always been equity. It is also the basis of the middle school movement that we hold dear, which originated as a challenge to the status quo of junior high schools. As progressive educators, we promote shifts in education to bring more equitable outcomes, more humane learning …

NEW Essential Skills & Dispositions Toolkit

Many schools and classrooms across the country identify student skills for success. Ideally, those skills cut across content areas and are grouped within grade bands. They are communicated and prioritized within the learning community. While Vermont’s AOE has identified five Transferable Skills, some learning institutions choose different ones – sometimes also known as “21st century skills”. …

Building resilience (for all) through personal efficacy

Even in the best of times, October can be a tough month for teachers. And it’s hard to call covid times the best. In the latest issue of Educational Leadership, noted teaching coach Elena Aguilar suggests several ways to boost teacher resilience. Paired with understanding what personal efficacy looks like for young adolescents, teachers and …

Fostering a Sound Culture at Hazen: Youth Voices and the Sounding Board Project

How can a school community emerge from isolation to reflect on individual and collective experiences from this uniquely challenging and transformative year? This spring, Hazen Union Middle/High School came back together around a creative engagement installation: the Sounding Board. Part of a broader Hazen Youth Voices Project — a collaborative initiative launched by the school’s …

“Because internet”: learning to communicate in different online spaces

When is a “lol” not a “lol”? Would a “ftw” hit as hard by any other name? Two things: Shakespeare’s now spinning in his grave like a turbine, powering most of greater Stratford; That’s absolutely fine with us. Language evolves. It grows and bends and twists and curls back on itself like you wouldn’t believe. …

Building a blended & hybrid teaching toolkit

Hybrid and remote teaching environments require us to tap into everything we know about designing engaging and targeted learning opportunities. At the same time, the contexts are often unfamiliar. So what we need is a blended and hybrid teaching toolkit. When looking to design a successful remote or hybrid learning experience, consider thinking about what …

Re-connect & re-imagine this return to school.

The return to school is usually filled with excitement, anticipation, and maybe a little nervousness. This year though? Much more nervousness with the excitement.  How can we anticipate what it will take to keep teachers and students safe? While each of our communities and school leadership put their hearts and minds into that question, we’re …

Video evidence & reflection for student-led conferences

How PAML scaffolds screencasts for students Students and their families at Peoples Academy Middle Level have participated in student led conferences for a number of years now. What’s new this year? The opportunity for each 5th and 6th grader to tell the story of their learning through video evidence and reflection. It’s these “Learner Story” …

On equity in the middle school movement

The middle school movement has been a powerful force for positive change. It’s rooted in progressive education, with special attention to the developmental needs of young adolescents. In Vermont, we are ahead of most other states in implementing middle school systems and associated student-centered practices. That’s a good thing. Relative newcomers to this place, like …

Who should be assessing student-led conferences?

Feedback is a key component of a successful, celebratory and growth-oriented student-centered conference. And your colleagues, your students and their families can all play vital roles in assessing student-led conferences. Who should be giving and receiving assessments? There’s *lots* of room at this table. Remember: feedback is a gift. (Resist the freakout: when we talk …

Chapter References

  Chapter 1: Personalized Learning for Young Adolescents Foundations and Connections Personalized Learning and Personal Learning Plan,The Glossary of Education Reform, New England Secondary Schools Consortium How Personal Learning is Working in Vermont, Penny Bishop, John Downes, and James Nagle, Educational Leadership, 2017 Promising State Policies for Personalized Learning, Susan Patrick et al., iNACOL, 2016 Chapter …

Trauma-informed personalized learning

Seeing back-to-school activities & personalized learning through the lens of trauma-informed classroom practices I had a eureka! moment this summer. We are so lucky when our critical thinking converges ideas in ways previously unrealized. It transformationally reframes our thinking. Those moments enrich ourselves and arrive with the promise that our private learning should have public …

#vted Reads: The Benefits of Being an Octopus

This one goes deep, folks. On this episode educator Corey Smith joins me to talk about The Benefits of Being an Octopus, by Ann Braden. We talk glitter and posterboard, coffee and peanut-butter smoothies, and using the Equity Literacy Framework to dismantle inequality in our systems of learning with both students AND adults. What might …

1.2 The Definition of a PLP

What is a Personalized Learning Plan (PLP)? Ultimately, a PLP is a tool. It can help us get to know our students better and teach us how to support each student’s learning. PLPs can also be: A creative way for students to show their identities, hopes, and interests A portfolio documenting students’ learning journeys. Demonstrations …

#vted Reads: Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades, with Penny Bishop

HELLO! I’m Jeanie Phillips and welcome back to vted Reads! We’re kicking off our second season of the podcast with none other than author, professor, associate dean and Vermont education LEGEND, Dr. Penny Bishop. We’ll talk VT PLPs, the power of a compelling school example in changing classrooms practices, and how to steal all the …

Ch 5: Flexing Your Pathways

Ah, that second pillar. Flexible pathways are key to engaging learning. They’re all those great ways we engage students actively and meaningfully. According to the Vermont Agency of Education: Flexible Pathways are any combination of high-quality expanded learning opportunities, including academic and experiential components, which build and assess attainment of identified proficiencies and lead to …

2.2 Avoid the Pitfalls!

We’ve seen educators launch PLPs in many different ways. And we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Students, of course, have helped show us the way. Here are two ways to avoid common pitfalls. Check out the book to see more of these! DO: Start with engaging learning Often, teachers start with …

2.1 Knowing Students Well

Remember that first pillar? You know, the one that had PLPs at the top and knowing students at its foundation? Right! It emphasized providing a window into students’ identities. Students need to feel safe at school, to know that they can truly be themselves, and that they’ll be seen, heard, accepted, and encouraged for who …

1.3 New Student & Teacher Roles

In a personalized learning environment, students and teachers take on new roles. Teachers are still essential, but in different ways. They’re empowerers, scouts, scaffolders, assessors, and community builders. Teachers are: empowerers. scouts. assessors. scaffolders. community builders. This is personal, close-in work. And often it better meets students’ needs, improves relationships, and deepens learning. By adopting …

Ch 8: Student-led PLP conferences

Asking students to share their PLPs is one powerful way to engage families in a deeper understanding of their child’s learning and progress. What does one look like? At Lamoille Union Middle-High School, in Hyde Park VT, middle school teams began moving toward PLP-based student-led conferences several years ago. The conferences consisted of students preparing …

How to make real, sustainable change in the Northeast Kingdom

Think Global Goals, make local change   The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are ambitious goals that countries, organizations, and institutions are committed to. They provide a framework that inspires students to connect local issues with global movements, to care deeply, and to make their own a plans for positive change. They include things such …

Chapter 9: Sustaining Innovation in Your Classroom, Team, or School

Foundations & Connections Our Work is Worth It! Kevin Hunt, PLP Pathways, 2018 Oh, the Challenges! Oh, the Possibilities! Jana Fabri-Sbardellati, VT Flexible Pathways Collaborative, 2018 Examples & Tools Phys Ed 2.0: More Learning, Less Suffering, Life LeGeros, Tarrant Institute, 2018 (Re)Designing PLPs with Students, Susan Hennessey, Tarrant Institute, 2016 Helpful Partners Middle Grades Collaborative PLP …

Chapter 3: Laying the Groundwork for Personalized Learning

Foundations & Connections The Learning Edge: Supporting Student Success in a Competency-Based Learning Environment, Laura Shubilla and Chris Sturgis, iNACOL, 2012 What is SEL? The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Gold Standard Project Based Learning, Buck Institute for Education Transferable Skills: Sample Graduation Proficiencies and Performance Indicators, Vermont Agency of Education Examples and …

Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades

How do educators personalize learning to engage, inspire & motivate students?   We’re pleased to share that our new book, Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades: A Guide for Teachers and School Leaders, will be available beginning May 7th. It’s available now for preorder. Teachers in grades five through eight can use personalized learning plans …

Chapter 2: Personalized Learning Plans

Foundations & Connections Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations Motivation, Engagement, and Student Voice, Eric Toshalis and Michael J. Nakkula, Jobs for the Future, 2012 The Future of Jobs: Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum, 2016 Proficiency, Personalization, and a Cocktail Napkin: Or, How PBL Became PPBL, Emily Rinkema, …

Scaffolding deeper identity work with students

Beyond the “About Me” page “What is important to know about me to help me learn?” Every student at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School attempted to answer this question last year. Student responses took many forms: poems, videos, sculptures, visual art, and more. At the same time, teachers crafted their own projects in order to …

Phys ed 2.0: More learning, less suffering

Personalizing PE In this era of personalized learning, it’s not just the jocks that find P.E. enjoyable. At Crossett Brook Middle School and Shelburne Community School, students employ cool technology, develop creative projects, and pursue personal interests and goals while developing autonomy, healthy habits, and deep understandings.

The 8th grade consultants shaping education at Burke Town School

The power of the student consult If you’re wondering what engages, excites and motivates students, the answer is easy: ask them. Creating opportunities for students to give feedback on plans, projects, assessments and activities builds a collaborative learning community, and creates leadership and student voice opportunities. Here’s how one school gave student consultants a shot.

Sharing your school’s Passion Projects

Does your community know you as a learner? Flood Brook School buzzed with excitement. Students brought in their projects on tables or on carts, the weight sometimes shared with friends. As they set up their displays, parents, teachers, younger students and community members milled about, waiting for the opportunity to learn more about student projects …

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3 strategies to create supportive structures during project time

Why structure? One of the most intimidating things about starting to do service and project based learning in the classroom is how to structure the time. One thing I have learned from direct experience in the classroom and from working with teachers is that this is structuring the time a key part of developing your …

Digital badges as evidence of flexible pathways

Realizing the promise of micro-credentialing As teachers and students grapple with how to implement proficiency-based assessment, flexible pathways and personalized learning, what can we learn from digital badge eco-systems? What’s been tried? What’s worked?  And what do we need to think about as we implement micro-credentialing to help us grapple, not just with the requirements …

Checking in with Stowe & PAML’s peer PLP collaboration

When last we left the students of these two plucky Vermont middle schools, they had managed to connect students and educators via Google Hangout. They’d gotten together to make pizzas and plot the future of personalized learning plans (PLPs). And they’d paired up students as PLP peer collaborators and spent some time reviewing PLPs in …

Student-led conferences

A student-led conference (or SLC) can be a magical opportunity for teachers to engage deeply with a student and their family. It typically involves a middle schooler gathering some evidence of their learning, strengths and challenges, and possibly their goals and aspirations. They assemble that evidence along with reflections into some format; many use a …

Identity

Young adolescents are compelled to explore various aspects of their identities, including values, beliefs, social identities, learning profiles, interests, cultures, and aspirations. When teachers provide opportunities for exploring and expressing identities, they will be able to strengthen relationships and provide personalized support to students’ academic and social emotional learning. As students seek to understand the …

4 examples of students as partners in school change

Let students help you transform your school Creating sustainable systemic change is hard work. Yet there are readily available, free, renewable resources right in your classroom. Students are embedded experts, creative geniuses, ruthless truthtellers, and intrinsic futurists. Here are four examples of students as partners in school change: partners in building a makerspace, redesigning PLPs, serving …

Scheduling and student choice

The middle school team at Rutland Town School in Rutland, VT have been working on a more fully integrated implementation of personal learning plans (PLPs) at their school. They’re also passionate believers in student choice and learner-centered classrooms. Given some flexibility to change the school schedule, they came up with iLearn, a model of student self-direction and …

iLead: a model for service learning and leadership

Personalization for school-based service learning Looking for a way to harness students’ energy while giving them meaningful work that appeals to their personal interests? One model for service learning I’ve used is iLead: a “job-based” program that channels student interest into meaningful positions around the school. School community improves, students learn responsibility in a way that …

8 methods for reflection in project-based learning

It’s where the learning is It is easy to not plan time for reflection in project-based learning (PBL) because there is just so much DOING! The students are engaged, and it’s fun and hands-on, and everything moves pretty quickly. But for PBL to connect to learning targets and goals and transferable skills, frequent reflection needs …

How to evaluate student-led conferences

Feedback, feedback, feedback! As educators, it’s absolutely critical that we reflect on our practices, especially new ones. As schools around the state finish with parent-teacher conferences this fall, I’d like to take a look at how to evaluate student-led conferences in particular, by checking in on how one school built feedback metrics into the process …

Tackling school change as a community

Community conversations about education What would you tell your neighbors about your school? What do you think they’d say in return? The Washington West Supervisory Union has set out to find out, by hosting a series of community conversations. Life LeGeros, a Tarrant Institute professional development coordinator and WWSU community member, is taking part in …

Onward and upward

Achieving escape velocity with students as partners Congratulations for making it through the first month of school! Whether it’s your first year as an educator or your thirty-first, the launch of the school year is a special — and especially challenging — time. It’s worth taking a moment to reflect and imagine how to build …

#ready2launch

Get ready for a new vision of innovative education With the advent of personalized learning, many schools and educators are finding the freedom to launch their teaching in a whole new direction. They’re getting #ready2launch into a vision of personalized learning with students as partners, students as leaders, and schools as places where learning is …

Telling the PLP story

Student reflection with Adobe Voice and Explain Everything Students at Fayston Elementary School worked hard this year with their team of teachers, not just to implement personal learning plans (PLPs), but to understand them to such a level that they could tell their stories. Using the digital tools Adobe Voice and Explain Everything, students crafted …

How students tell their PLP stories

Scaffolding PLPs so students understand them 5th and 6th graders from Fayston Elementary School took their personal learning plans (PLP) in extraordinary and unexpected directions this year. All because of trust, dedication, and team work by their teachers. This livecast of a presentation at the Dynamic Landscapes conference exemplifies the approach. You will hear students …

Implementing 1:1 norms and digital citizenship

How do student behaviors change? Debi Serafino, a math teacher at Brattleboro Area Middle School, presents the results of her semester-long action research project examining the effects of implementing 1:1 norms and digital citizenship on the behavior of the incoming 7th graders, all of whom participate in a 1:1 Chromebook project. Here’s what she and her team discovered.

A community-based interdisciplinary unit

A tech-rich case study from rural Vermont The team from Hazen Union Middle School, in Hardwick, Vermont, conducted an action research project over the fall semester of 2015, centered around deepening students’ connection to their community. They called the unit “I Belong”. It provided students with tech-rich opportunities to engage with the small and rural community of their …

Community Based Learning in Vermont: What’s going on?

4 lessons from a recent gathering On Friday, March 11, more than 50 participants from public and private schools, community education partners, and higher education from Vermont and the surrounding region gathered for a Community Based Learning workday, put on by Big Picture Learning, Eagle Rock School, Big Picture South Burlington, and Partnership for Change. …

Using digital tools to change student goal-setting and reflection

Measuring how students approach goal-setting in the 5th and 6th grades   Educators at Wallingford Elementary School and Shrewsbury Mountain School, in central Vermont, undertook an action research project measuring how their use of digital tools — specifically Google Docs, Forms and Sites — changed how middle grades students approached setting goals and reflecting on their …

Exploring digital citizenship as a form of literacy

7th graders learn video as reflection tool When I sat down to work with my students on digital citizenship and literacy, I wanted to do something different. These are 7th graders coming from lots of different schools, different levels of understanding, different exposure to the concepts of digital citizenship and I was trying to think of …

Providing support for goal-setting in a PLP

3 strategies shared by local educators At Manchester Elementary Middle School, sixth grade students speak fluently about their Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). They’ve been working on setting goals in a PLP for years; some students in this school have been doing so since third grade. Manchester educators Seth Bonnett and Melissa Rice, share what they’ve learned about …

What I Learned From My PLP

Modeling a PLP as an adult learner As a new year dawns, are you thinking about self improvement? A Personal Learning Plan (PLP) is a great way to plan and document your professional growth, provide a framework for reflection, and gain a better understanding of how to make PLPs most useful for your students.

Screencasting as PLP reflection

Students create screencasts for student-led conferences Sixth graders at The Dorset School in southern Vermont are in their second year of working with Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). These exuberant adolescents have fond memories of one experience. Last year, these students were paired with teacher Amanda Thomas. Mid-way through the year of working with her students …

Defining innovation in Vermont education

What do we mean when we talk about innovation in Vermont education? Recently, the #vted Twitter chat focused on innovation, and the conversation brought a mix of practical tips, brilliant insight, and positive sentiment. The take-home message for me was that innovation thrives in an environment with a balance of risk-taking, moral support, and professional learning.

Augmented reality and student identity

Students explore the geography of self(ies) An innovative way for students to explore who they are happens in Lori Lisai’s classroom at Lamoille Union Middle School where she works with them to craft an interactive biography through her Geography of Self project. A bulletin board houses the student self portraits; 8th graders include their 7th grade …

T is for Timelines

Timeline tools for transformative learning Timeline tools can serve two important purposes: concrete help with project planning (for PLPs, 1:1 rollouts, PBL) and for displaying evidence of learning in an easily digestible format. But the online, anytime/anywhere, collaborative nature of such tools can unlock meta-learning for students, providing them with a platform for bolstering collaboration and …

L is for Learning Management System (LMS)

What can you do with an LMS? LMS stands for Learning Management System. An LMS is an application for planning, delivering, managing, and assessing a learning process. Likely, your school or district will choose which commercial LMS package to deploy (Canvas, Haiku, Schoology and Google Classroom are a few), but how you use it is entirely up to you.

I is for Identity

3 tech-rich strategies for exploring identity with students “Who am I?” is the question at the heart of the adolescent mind. Almost all challenges, tests, and dilemmas relate to the central theme of identity. Young adolescents seek to find answers to questions like, “Where do I fit in?”, “What makes me different or special?” and …

H is for Hangout

What can educators do with Google Hangout? Much like being friends on social media, physical proximity has little to do connecting people with other people. Google Hangouts has successfully made communication between individuals or groups and accessing information a bit easier and some may save they even have shrunk the world.

Personalized Learning in Vermont

Implementation of personal learning plans (PLPs) around Vermont As Vermont works through the first year of implementing personalized learning and Act 77, Flexible pathways to secondary education completion (pdf) there ‘s a lot of discussion on the best way to implement personalized learning in Vermont. PLPs are non-traditional pathways by which students can navigate from entrance …

Personalizing Vermont’s education system

Move to implement PLPs reflected at two local conferences for educators Fall in Vermont features two amazing local conferences for educators: VT Fest and the Rowland Foundation Conference. And at both these events, one of the hottest topics was personalized learning. As Vermont moves to implement Act 77, Flexible pathways to secondary education completion (pdf) …

4 ways personalized learning plans are taking off in Vermont

Educators are embracing digital tools for planning and sharing Personalized learning plans, or PLPs, are non-traditional pathways by which students can navigate from entrance to graduation in a way that’s personally meaningful. By studying topics they’re passionate about, students continue to stay engaged; by collaborating on the plans with educators and family, students’ passions can …